Welcome to iGEM Aachen 2016

Beyond The Basics

To achieve a great outreach we worked on many more projects in the field of public relations.

Special events

NRW Day

Figure 1: Presenting our topic in Düsseldorf

This year the state North-Rhine Westphalia celebrated its 70th birthday, with event days for the public, in its capital Düsseldorf. Because of that, the iGEM Team Düsseldorf invited members of our team and other iGEM teams from North Rhine Westphalia to come to Düsseldorf. Here we were given the possibility to present our project idea to the public and to talk about the advantages of synthetic biology. This gave us the chance to review our project and integrate the opinions, fears and ideas from other people. We want to thank the iGEM team Düsseldorf for organizing this

Future Lab Gala

Future lab is a gala organized by different institutes an ornganizations in Aachen to present Aachen as the perfect place for research, science and industry. During this gala, the participants presented themselves with the help of scientific experiments, art and speeches. It was a great opportunity for us to get in touch with politicans, people from the industry and different universities and to tell them about iGEM and our project.

Figure 2: Our Team visiting the Future Lab Gala in Aachen

Conferences

Annual meeting of DECHEMA

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In September, us, the iGEM Team Aachen, and the team from Göttingen were invited to the “DECHEMA Jahrestagung”. The “Society for Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology” gave us a slot to present our project in front of a scientific audience. Our presentations were included in the “Zukunftsforum”, a subitem of the conference with focus on the future perspective and strategies for the biotechnological industry in Germany. We are thankful for the opportunity to establish a dialogue with the scientific community and practice our presentational skills for the Giant Jamboree.

Analytica

We visited the trade fair “Analytica”, for analysis, biotechnology, laboratory technology and devices, in Munich. Here we got in touch with different companies and presented our project to them. Moreover, this trade fair gave us the possibility to win over supporters for our project. We also met members from the iGEM Team Munich.

SynBioBeta

SynBioBeta is one of the main communities of entrepreneurs, investors and policy makers devoted to promote the responsible growth of the synthetic biology field. “We’re dedicated to telling the stories of the field and companies involved, building their networks, and helping them grow.” On their international conferences and events many members of the synthetic biology community come together and discuss possibilities to promote the development of this industrial field. The background of people, visiting these conferences, is very diverse and therefore various aspects are discussed. Our members were not only able to meet industrial members and scientist, but also other iGEM Teams and Randy, founder of the iGEM organization. This was an amazing experience for us and left a big impression on our members during their visit in London. Furthermore, our members were able to listen to different lectures and participate in many discussion rounds.

Figure 2: Some members of our team meeting Randy and other iGEM Teams at SynBioBeta

Biomedica

In 2016 the Biomedica trade fair took place in Aachen from the 30th to the 31st of May. So many members of our team decided to visit this conference and look at the different topics, which were presented. Moreover, the four headwords: “Pharma, Biotech, Meditech and Innovation” called our attention. Biomedica started in 2007, as the first Euregional conference on lifesciences. Biomedica started as a joint conference of three already existing conferences in Liege, Aachen and Maastricht. It focusses on combining business and science.

Meet ups

European iGEM Meet up

The iGEM Teams from Paris invited us to visit the European iGEM Meet up in Paris. For our members it was a great experience to participate, because they had the opportunity to get in touch with other iGEM teams, learn something about the different projects and establish a personal contact with other members. Moreover, they had the chance to include the expertise and suggestions from other teams in the planning process of our project. But of course we also had a lot of fun in this amazing city. In this context we want to thank once again the iGEM Teams in Paris again for their invitation.

German iGEM Meet upp

All German teams came together at this Meet up in Marburg. iGEM Marburg organized a tour through their town and for the scientific exchange, they invited local scientists, industry representatives and of course Traci from iGEM headquarters to give talks. Moreover, we had the opportunity to present our project ideas in front of all the other teams. It was a lot of fun and after the weekend we went home tired but happy.

Figure 3: Members of our team playing bubble soccer at the German iGEM Meetup

Team:Aachen/Beyond Basics